With seven or eight Formula 1 weekends remaining in 2026, Red Bull faces two objectives: avoiding its first winless year since 2015 and gathering lessons for 2027. Max Verstappen acknowledges Baku was theoretically the team's best chance to break the drought, especially with Mercedes lacking upgrades, but prioritizes learning over immediate results. "We have to wait a little bit now in the coming races to see how our car is going to perform, which is probably also quite good for us," Verstappen said. "We'll probably learn a lot over these coming races of what we need for next year, and what we want to do with the car."
Isack Hadjar echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that learning for 2027 takes precedence over individual race outcomes. "It's good. It should be eight races to the end and there's no pressure. It's not like we're fighting for any championship. Now we have eight races to learn as much as we can," the Frenchman stated. "We have to try all the things, make all the mistakes now and do all the learning to arrive in 2027 ready to roll and start on high."
Verstappen has already outlined ideas for bigger changes to the 2027 car, citing performance and degradation issues that can't be addressed in the current RB22 due to chassis limitations and budget cap constraints. While satisfied with the Baku upgrade, he stresses Red Bull must make a much larger step next year across the car and power unit. Hadjar confirms he shares similar structural ideas for the RB23, adding they are "mostly aligned on those things."
Source: Autosport F1 News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing